What would you do?

SMace

What if you terminated an ee and they called back to tell you that the ee that he thinks caused him to be terminated (he threatened this ee and behaved in a threatening manner when he had a discussion about the incident with two supervisors)brought a gun into the plant and gave the name of a witness. The accused has no history of violence and is a very good ee.

Hatchetman

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-30-04 AT 03:17PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Call the police to report the threat.

Have your security or your managmenet team talk to the emplyee who brought the gun in and make sure that the gun is not on company property and it never will be brought onto company property (without the emplyee being fired).

SMace

I did a terrible job explaining the situation. I'll try again.

1. Employee A fired for threatening employee B and because of other mitigating circumstances relating to violence.

2. A week later A calls back because he is upset he was fired and wants to take B down with him. He reports that B had brought a gun into the plant and gave employee C as a witness. No one was threatened with the gun. I'm speculating that if it is true he thought it was cool and wanted to show it off.

3. B is a very good employee with no history of violent behavior.

I find terminated employees often make accusations left and right when they are terminated. I rarely take much issue with them. However a gun in the plant is a serious issue.

Still same advice Hatchet?

neveradull

Be consistent, if you have ignored accusations from disgruntled employees in the past then ignore this one. The alternative is to investigate and ask employee C. But then what if employee C is a good friend of employee A and is lying for him. Ask yourself this question if what is said is true why hasn't employee C came forward on his own. Good employees usually don't violate the rules, nor go postal without advance warning signs.

marc

I am a bit confused. Two EEs had some sort of incident which resulted in one EE acting in some sort of intimidating manner. The EE doing the intimidating was fired. The threatening and intimidating was witnessed by two supervisors. Sometime during this scenario the other EE brough a gun to work? Before the EE was fired?

I think you need to investigate the gun issue - do you have a policy regarding weapons at work?

If so, and there was a witness, you may have to do a little more disciplinary action with the gun-toting EE. Some ERs have a zero tolerance policy with respect to guns - we do.

You cannot just enforce this policy against EEs that have issues, everyone must comply. Follow your policy - at least a big write up, if not a termination.

Pork

As a minimum if one did in fact bring a gun to the plant and you have a company policy against such then you must exercise your company poicy to investigate and then decide what is the next course of action to include termination of the very best and finest employee ever employed on the face of this earth. To do otherwise makes your policy nil and void.

PORK

SMace

The employee bringing the gun in was not related to the threatening behavior. Policy is policy and you follow the policy. The Ops Mgr is going to fight it kicking and screaming so I wanted some additional ammo when I tell him he has to. I like for him to want to do things, not have to do things. Thanks to all for the advice!

Don D

This is one of those posts you read six times, still don't understand, and have no response to. Good luck.






Note: The preceeding is my personal opinion and has no value beyond that. Although it may be 'sorta offensive' or 'indeed offensive' to someone out there, it is offered without regard to that possibility. Should you find yourself alarmed by my post, you may privately mail me to protest or you may alert the principal's office. x:-)

swbpr

I was thinking the exact same thing, Don!!!

Crout

First investigate the charge and determine if it's true or false. Launching an investigation does not automatically mean that EE-B will be burned falsely, and you have a duty to protect the company from liability, which is the reason you make a good-faith effort to investigate. Remember that part of the process of determination is to take into account the validity of your witnesses, and if EE-C is a good friend of EE-A it would call into question that validity, and you may very well determine that the charge is groundless based on that. By the way, if you determine that the charge is true, I would think about some kind of discipline for EE-C for failing to report the incident when it happened.